


Rather Be

by DoubleJinx (orphan_account)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Alternate Universe- after high school, Angst, Developing Relationship, Dorks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mild Language, Nishinoya POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3412553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/DoubleJinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been five years since high school. Nishinoya Yuu owns his own little successful flower boutique downtown. He still has some friends he's managed to keep in contact with from high school, but the person he really misses, Azumane Asahi, he hasn't spoken to in four years. That's when a tattoo parlor goes in right next to Nishinoya's shop. The two of them are reunited once again, but when Asahi's presence starts to bring up old memories from high school, Nishinoya finds himself conflicted between friendship and possible romantic feelings for his best friend. Can Nishinoya get Asahi to fall in love with him naturally, or do his friends blurt his secret and ruin their relationship forever?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rather Be

**Author's Note:**

> "If you gave me a chance I would take it  
> It's a shot in the dark but I'll make it  
> Know with all of your heart, you can't shame me  
> When I am with you, there's no place I'd rather be"  
> ~Rather Be, by Clean Bandit

Have you ever thought about the significance of flowers? The different colors, shapes, sizes, species- all that seem to represent something different. Calla lilies or hydrangeas for weddings, tulips or red roses for anniversaries, carnations or daisies for funerals, I know them all. As a florist, I wouldn't be doing my job right if I didn't know flowers.

I sometimes wonder what my high school self would say if they knew that five years after graduating high school, they'd have their own little successful floral boutique in downtown. 

Probably something along the lines of, 'What the hell?'

I was happy. My own little business with its own little 'Noya's Flowers' sign above the little entrance. It was little, like, me, and I was okay with that. 

Mostly happy, at least. After high school, I'd lost contact with several of my friends, mostly third-years who'd graduated a year before me, but most importantly, I missed Azumane Asahi. Five years since high school... Four years had gone by since I'd last spoken to him. He'd gone to some college far away and that was the last I heard of him. 

In the end, it was just Suga, Tanaka, Hinata, and I who stayed. Hinata worked as my energetic flower delivery boy (and still referred to me as senpai, which I didn't mind in the slightest), and every Wednesday afternoon, all four of us would meet up for lunch at a small pizza place that was within walking distance for all of our jobs. 

Today was indeed a Wednesday. I stood behind the counter in the boutique, tapping my fingers against the surface and gazing up at the clock, silently begging it to go faster. It was 11:48, only twelve more minutes before I could shut down the shop for a few hours and relax with my friends. 

Hinata suddenly burst through the entrance to the shop, happily wearing his green and pink 'Noya's Flowers' apron as he closed the door behind him, humming to himself.

"I delivered the flowers over to the bridal shop on 21st street," he reported, beaming as he dropped the keys to the delivery van on the counter. "The lady at the front desk looked really happy to see them," 

"Good. Another customer satisfied." I nodded, pleased with myself. I was starting to be known for my flowers, and business was steadily increasing. I'd probably have to start hiring more people than just Hinata and myself pretty soon. 

I gazed back up at the clock, sighing in annoyance at seeing that the digital numbers had only advanced by a single minute. 

Hinata followed my gaze up to the clock and laughed. "I'm excited too- It's been a whole week since we last saw Suga and Tanaka..." 

I nodded, absentmindedly, continuing to drum my fingers on the counter and gaze at the clock. 

Hinata skipped behind the counter to stand next to me, grinning. Wednesday's always made him so happy. Suga, Tanaka, and I had originally gone out together with just us, and I later realized that Hinata was dying to go too. 

I smiled vaguely at the memory of him repeatedly thanking the three of us for letting him come-remembering Suga's embarrassed nod and Tanaka's casual "no problem" followed by a grin. 

"Noya-senpai?" Hinata's voice brought me back to reality.

"Yeah?"

"It's 11:58-" 

"Finally!" I exclaimed, tearing myself away from the counter to start turning off lights and whatever else needed to be done. Hinata eagerly ran after me, almost excitedly watching my actions. It still made me smile that five years after high school he still thought I was the greatest. 

We stopped at the entrance after finishing, where we exited and Hinata waited as I locked the front doors.

"Done!" I declared, zipping up my orange windbreaker as the two of us approached my car. Hinata was busy tugging on his own pink fleecy jacket as I unlocked my car and hopped into the drivers seat. It was a tiny, generally worthless car, but it still got me where I needed to go. It had a kind of gross turquoise exterior and a brown polyester interior that was enough to make anyone gag. I kept it mostly clean though- I deserved points there. 

Hinata quickly scrambled into the passenger seat, carefully closing the door and buckling up his seat belt before jabbing his finger onto the button that turned on the radio. He was grinning.

"What're you so excited for? It's just Suga and Tanaka- just like every Wednesday." I asked, shifting the car into reverse and backing out of my parking spot. 

"I think that eventually we won't be able to do it every week, so I enjoy the days we do have." Hinata said, then started humming along to the song on the radio.

I frowned at the steering wheel, realizing that I hadn't thought about that much. Of course, Hinata was right- there would eventually be a day when we wouldn't all be able to meet up every single Wednesday to have lunch. 

I preferred to live in the now and not think too hard about the future. That was one aspect that, despite our slight age difference, Hinata was more mature than I in.

After a few minutes drive, I pulled into the parking lot in front of the little pizzeria, claiming front row parking. Hinata and I hopped out and headed inside, where Suga and Tanaka were already waiting with sodas. 

I pulled out a chair next to Tanaka, while Hinata sat across from us by Suga, who smiled at Hinata in greeting. 

"No cops mistook you for a kid driving on the way over this time?" Tanaka sniggered. 

"Shut up, that happened once," I said, rolling my eyes but still smirking at the memory. At my full adult height of 5'2" and a half, I was often mistaken for being much younger than I really was. 

Suga stirred the ice cubes around in his soda with his red straw, chuckling a bit at Tanaka's tease. Hinata was helping himself to the soda, pouring the dark liquid into two of the empty plastic cups and shyly pushing one towards me.

"Thanks," I said, chugging half of the cups' contents. A waitress finally came over to our table, a fake smile plastered on her face. 

"Hi, have you decided on your order?" She asked, apparently having already spoken to Tanaka and Suga before we arrived.

"We'll have three large pepperoni pizzas, please." Suga requested, politely, ordering our usual.

The waitress looked slightly alarmed at the sheer amount for just four people, but since Suga was the only one of us with a semi-normal appetite (and even then he WAS a full-grown dude and still ate like it), we would all usually scarf down the three pizzas in less than twenty minutes like it was nothing. 

"Are you going to want any of those to-go?" She asked. 

"No thank you," Suga returned once again, smiling. Still polite, as always. 

"Alrighty," the waitress scribbled down our order on her notepad, then scurried off to another table. 

"We should play volleyball this Saturday," I suggested, more casually than I actually felt about the subject. We only played volleyball about once every two months now. There was just no time anymore with all of us having jobs. 

Hinata's head snapped up, pausing his soda-slurping for a moment to nod eagerly at my proposition. 

"I can't, I'm cat-sitting this weekend," Suga said, sighing. 

"I'm visiting my sister," Tanaka explained as I looked, hopefully to him.

"Oh, lame..." I glanced down at my soda, disappointed, then quickly moving on to another subject, I added, "-and /cat-sitting/, Suga? Is that even a real thing?"

"Yes!" Suga defended. "It's for Kenma, he asked me to while he's at a video game exhibition with Kuroo this weekend," 

In truth, I was sad that this was going to be week six of no volleyball, but I laughed at Suga's explanation just the same. 

We all chatted about life and jobs and family until our enormous pizzas arrived. The waitress had to make several trips back and forth to grab all three pizzas, plates, and napkins, then the moment she left, we all reached out to grab a slice and started eating.

"Oh, Nishinoya," Suga said after a while, swallowing. I looked up from wolfing down my fifth slice. "You know the empty place for lease right next to your shop?"

"Oh yeah, of course I do," I said. The place had been empty for almost two years. "What about it?"

"I heard someone finally leased it-" 

"Seriously? That's great!" I grinned, excitedly. That meant more business for 'Noya's Flowers'-

"I think it's going to be some kind of tattoo shop," Suga continued. I paused, staring at him a moment. A tattoo shop? Of all things? Who was going to want to buy flowers at somewhere right next to a /tattoo shop/!? 

"Senpai?" Hinata asked, looking concerned. His cheeks were full of pizza, trying to keep up with Tanaka and I, as usual. "Isn't that good news?"

"Not a /tattoo shop/." I scoffed. 

"C'mon, Noya," Tanaka smirked. "We can get those matching anchor tattoos we wanted in high school so our friendship never /floats/ away." 

"Bro-"

"Please don't start this again," Suga said, groaning and taking another sip of soda. 

"Sorry, mom," Tanaka chuckled.

"I asked you to stop calling me that-" Suga sighed and defeatedly placed his napkin on the table. 

By the time the four of us were finished eating, there were about three slices left from the three large pizzas we'd ordered. The waitress came back over, looked shocked, then managed to ask if we wanted to take the rest home, which Tanaka nodded to and declared that it was his turn to take the leftovers. 

After paying (and by paying I mean Tanaka, Hinata, and I trying not to let Suga buy EVERYTHING), we exited the restaurant and walked out to my car, standing by it for a moment to talk. 

"This thing gets uglier every time I see it," Tanaka wrinkled his nose at my car, disgusted. 

"Did I ask for your opinion?" I snapped back at him. "My car is fine, thanks." 

"Try not to scare the whoever is leasing that tattoo shop, Noya," Suga teased as I opened the drivers side door. 

"Yeah, yeah- I'll see you guys soon," I waved my hand, dismissively as Hinata scrambled into the passenger seat.

"Bye!" Hinata called, happily to them as I backed the car out of the parking spot, then headed back to 'Noya's Flowers.' 

"We should make the new owner a bouquet when they move in," Hinata said.

"Yeah, good idea." I agreed. Why was I thinking so negatively about this anyways? Perhaps the new shop would even help increase my own business rather than hurt it. 

"What kind of flowers are you going to use?" Questioned Hinata.

I grinned.

"Oh, I have a few ideas-" 

* * * 

It took the movers a week to get all of the equipment into the new shop. I could watch from inside of my own boutique, making the bouquets and observing as people brought furniture and tables and etc from the trucks into the building.

Another week later and the place was up and running as its own shop known as 'Ace Ink'. I was just putting together the bouquet for the place when Hinata entered the shop, beaming.

"Are we gonna go deliver the flowers when you're done?" Hinata asked, bouncing over to stand next to the counter and watched as I carefully placed the flowers into a vase, making sure they were perfect. 

"YOU are," I said. He tilted his head to the side, confused. "I have to stay here and watch the shop." 

"Ooohhhh... Okay. Are you almost done?"

"Almost." 

Hinata continued staring at the flowers until I finally took a step back from my creation, grinning.

"Perfect," I declared. "You can take it over now, remember to say that it's a gift from the owner at 'Noya's Flowers'." 

"Got it!" Hinata said, doing a little pretend salute before lifting up the vase and skipping outside. 

I sighed, watching him, then began to start another order I'd gotten for someone's anniversary. 

I'd only been working on it for about two minutes when suddenly Hinata burst though the front entrance, looking pale. 

"Hinata?" I looked up, then found myself surprised at the look on his face. "You look like you just saw a ghost-" 

"There's no way..." He gasped, staring at me with huge eyes. 

"What?"

"The guy at the front desk... It's Tsuki from high school-"

"Oh yeah, the tall guy," I didn't see what he was getting so worked up about. Yeah it was cool that someone from high school was there, but neither of us had even known Tsuki very well.

"But NISHINOYA-SENPAI," Hinata said, lunging forward and leaning over the front counter to grab my shoulders. "I SWEAR I SAW KAGEYAMA AND ASAHI-"

"Ehh??!" Was the noise that escaped me at the news. "There's no way-" 

"Come see!" Hinata begged. Forget manning the shop, I had to see this. I threw myself over the counter and dashed after Hinata out of the shop, turning the OPEN sign to CLOSED as we left and ran into the shop next door.

My first impression was how CLEAN the tattoo shop was. The words 'tattoo shop' brought to my mind a vision of a dark, small, grimy room occupied by tough looking guys that appeared as though they belonged on a motorcycle rather than their own two feet. 

Instead, it was very neat and modern. There were red couches a ways away from the front desk, where a tall, blond man sat, drawing something. 

"Tsuki!" Hinata hissed. The blond man snapped his head up at the sound, making eye contact with Hinata. The bouquet sat next to him. 

"You're back?" Tsuki asked in an annoyed tone, then noticed me. His eyes widened slightly.

"Today's been a weird day..." He muttered, shaking his head and looking back down at his drawing. I noticed that he wore a white tank top, revealing a black and white tattoo sleeve. I couldn't make out exactly what it was, but it looked beautiful. 

"So where's Kageyama and... Asahi?" I quietly asked Hinata.

"I'm pretty sure that's Kageyama over there-" Hinata pointed to a man who's back was to us, so it was impossible to tell, but the man had Kageyama's raven black hair and the tall, skinny body he'd had back in high school. 

Then from the back of the room that was hidden by curtains, a deep voice called, "Tsuki! Do we have customers?" 

"Uh..." Tsuki glanced over at us, then turned his head back towards the curtain. "In a way." 

"In a way?" The source of the voice suddenly pulled back the curtains, moving to the front desk to Tsuki. 

My jaw dropped. The man... A little over six feet tall... Long light brown hair pulled back into a bun... It was... 

"What do you mean, 'in a way-'?" the man asked, then as he stopped next to Tsuki, he lazily glanced over at Hinata and I, then back to Tsuki. The man then suddenly froze, slowly staring up at us once again. His mouth fell open as the two of us made eye contact.

"N-Nishinoya?" He stammered, his eyes huge.

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly extremely dry as I responded with, "A-Asahi?" 

~End of Chapter One~

**Author's Note:**

> I hope to have another chapter up within the next month or so, but it could be a little longer depending on schoolwork. Please leave comments or kudos!


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